


come to this open place

by Laylah, roachpatrol



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Butchering, Developing Relationship, F/F, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Human/Troll Hybrids, Hunting, New Universe AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-10 23:38:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/791495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah, https://archiveofourown.org/users/roachpatrol/pseuds/roachpatrol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night-time sleeping period is the longer one, from midnight-ish until nearly dawn, but you feel like this time you spend almost the whole night tossing and turning. It helps to have an idea of what you're going to do, but you're still so nervous. He said yes. You never expected him to say yes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“—It's just, well, Equius is gross,” Jade says, and stabs her spear down into the water. “Fuck! Missed again.”

“He is naut!” you protest. “He’s just got a little purrspiration problem—”

“And a fuck-off ginormous clown problem,” Jade says, and stabs again. “ _Shit_.”

You can't argue with that. “Clam down, you’re scaring the fish.”

“They should be scared!” Jade stabs wildly at the water, splashing and lunging after one flickering dark shape and then another as they dart away. “Ugh! Come on! Get on my spear already!” You catch her wrist and she whines, long and resigned.

“Calm yourshellf,” you repeat. “A huntress strikes the minute she’s ready, and not an instant befur.”

“Rrrrrgh,” Jade says, but takes a few deep breaths.

“You’re not adjusting for refraction,” you conclude.

“Reef-raction,” she says, and sticks her tongue out smugly. “Re-fur-action.”

Oh, those are good, and you laugh. You can hear Feferi laughing too from the bank, and the tension breaks neatly. Jade smiles proudly, settling back into the waiting stance you’d shown her, and you take the opportunity to scatter more beetles across the surface of the lake. You stand there, hand on her shoulder, while the fish start circling back.

“I can feel them,” Jade says frustratedly. “I know where they are, I keep thinking if I could just _pull_!”

You pat her shoulders. “And Fefurry and I forgot we didn’t have gills when we first waded in here. We’re all difurent now.”

“Yeah,” Jade says, and stabs again. This time she whoops with delight, not anger, and shouts, “I got it, I got one!” When she pulls the wooden trident up a big fat silvergut is writhing on the tines, scattering rainbows from its bright scales. You whoop too, and Jade goes charging out of the water to drop the fish in Feferi’s half-woven basket.

“I did it!” she shouts.

“You did it!” Feferi shouts, and they go dancing around together. There’s a beautiful likeness to them now that you’re all the same species, in their wild hair and long sharp horns and deep bronze skin and the careless joy of their movements. You feel short, clipped, constrained. A huntress doesn’t keep her hair long or scare off the prey. And big horns just get in the way of sneaking through brush. You turn and stab your trident, the haft easy and familiar in your claws, and you get your own fish. You peel it off and toss it to the bank, then stab again. Again.

Feferi comes out and slips her arms around your thorax, rests her chin between your horns. You take a deep, shaky breath. It’s good like this, to press close to her, to remember the easy peace and fondness of sharing a skin.

“He’ll come around, kitten,” she says. “We’re all different now.”

“Yeah, some of us are worse,” you say, and you've been trying so hard not to be bitter, not to think the worst, but it gets hard. You're so tired. You miss him so much. “He thinks he’s in love. With him. I just. I don’t ship it, how could I efur, _he killed us._ And now Isle never get to krill him back.”

Feferi kisses the top of your head. You take a deep breath, sniff hard, wipe your eyes.

“Want to try your paw?” you ask, and she grins.

“Race you to a baker’s dozen,” she challenges. “Jade! Fork me!”

“Buy a girl a drink first!” Jade calls back, because _fork_ and _fuck_ and that’s what humans call concupiscence, and she tosses the spare trident in an easy overhand arc while you’re both giggling like wigglers. Feferi catches it out of the air and spins with the momentum, slicing glittering lines through the water, and for a moment everything is light and alien beauty, shining red-pink-gold in the sunset. Then you push her over and she shrieks.

You spear a fish.

“I’m winning!” you call.

She grabs your ankle with warm unwebbed fingers and yanks you under.

*

The walk back from the lake is pretty enough, glittering insects flashing and dancing in the growing darkness under the trees, and Jade makes for good company. You’re in good spirits by the time the small, ramshackle collection of hives comes into view between the trees. You can smell the fire, burning in an open pit between the hives—it's warm enough that you don't really need extra heat for sleeping, so far, so there's just one fire outside for cooking on.

Dave and Karkat are tending the fire tonight, the two of them oddly alike now except for horn shape: they both have the same extra-pale almost-see-through skin, the same starry-white hair. "Yo," Dave says as you get close. "The mighty huntresses return."

“You bet your pasty asses we return,” Jade says. “We return _most triumphant._ ”

“Righteous, duuuuude,” Dave says, nasally, and he and Jade wave their hands in the same strange pattern, as if tickling invisible beasts, then Jade starts laughing. It’s a human joke. You glance at Feferi and she glances at you and you both roll your eyes.

“Aliens,” huffs Jade.

“What’s even up with that,” deadpans Dave.

“A poke in the eye with a sharp fucking stick is what’s up,” Karkat says, and whips a burning branch up at his friend. The two of them bowl over in a pile of elbows and hissing, and Jade goes and kicks both of them until she’s gotten the branch away.

“Fire is not a toy,” she says sternly. “Don’t make me separate you two.”

“Oh, yeah, talk ashen to us,” Dave says, all throaty purr, and you can feel your ears heat up. “Separate us harder, Harley, _mmmnh_.”

“You filthy fucking deviant,” Karkat says fondly, and shakes his head by one curled horn until Dave yowls. They’re covered in sweat and ash and have apparently been rolling around with each other all day, sleepy and friendly and content inside each other’s reach. For a moment you want Equius so badly it makes your eyes sting.

"Am I missing a chance to see my favorite douchebags fail pathetically at beating the shit out of each other?"

That's Sollux, swaggering up to join you at the fire. Dave and Karkat stop scuffling with each other and snarl at him in tandem, and all the rest of you burst out in giggles at that. They're so goofy sometimes, and it's so _cute_.

"How's the building going?" Feferi asks, tucking herself up against Sollux's side and winding her arms around his waist.

"Not too bad. AA just took over for me at the quarry, and I think we'll have the stone for the next hive done by tomorrow night." He works his fingers up into the heavy fall of Feferi's hair, skritching gently, and you have to look away from them, because otherwise it'll be way too obvious how much you'd like that. Sollux isn't even your _type_ , even if you do think he looks better now than he used to—his new body isn't so skeletal as his old one, and the deep umber of his skin is nice—but you have enough of Feferi's memory to remember how it feels to find him hot, and to be touched by him, and...

"Are we the only ones around for dinner right now, then?" you ask, and it comes out a little squeaky but you just dare anyone to laugh.

“The others will come in eventually,” Karkat says. “Probably when they smell food. I told them all to stay close but it’s not like anyone listens—”

“—Or like there’s anything in these woods we couldn’t take,” Dave says, grinding his horns into Karkat’s face.

“Fuck you, you don’t know that.”

“Do too.”

“Get off—”

You start spearing the fish on sticks and setting them up to roast while they bicker.

“We should set up some kind of grilling rack,” Sollux says thoughtfully. “I hope Equius finds more metal deposits soon.”

"Mmn," Jade agrees. She's stuffing some of the fish with these fragrant onion-grasses that grow where the trees thin out. "I wonder if I could help with that? You know, see if we could determine where to dig by trying to track spots where density changes underground."

Sollux makes a _hmm_ noise like he's pondering that, and for a second you remember finding that so adorable it made you glub. Then you put that memory firmly out of mind and go back to tending your fish, turning the first few around to make sure both sides cook evenly.

Everyone settles down a bit when the first batch of fish are ready to eat. Sollux and Feferi feed each other bites in between nuzzles, while Dave and Jade supply loud and cheerful gagging noises. They look so _happy_. The others that are still around drift in and out, in between their own errands. Aradia shows up covered in rock dust and wipes her hands off on Sollux’s shirt, and you close your eyes and lie back in the grass. You’re not jealous, you’re not. You’re just tired.

Feferi nudges you in the ribs with her toes and you yelp, squirming out of reach. _Well?_ she mouths at you, her eyes wide. _Do it!_

You sit up in a hurry, blushing hard and hoping it doesn't show. At some point in the last few minutes Dave has swooned dramatically across Jade's lap, and she's now methodically twisting his hair into little tangled spikes. Karkat is watching them, and he's blushing, too. Maybe it's just the warmth of the fire. You don't know.

Out of the corner of your eye you see Feferi shift like she's going to come after you again, and you wish you had half the confidence she does that this would be a good idea. Still, better to just...get it over with, right?

You clear your throat. "Um. Karkat.”

He jumps. Everyone looks at you. You realize this is the first thing you’ve actually specifically said to him in... literal sweeps. You want to say _nefur mind_ so intensely you can taste it on your tongue, sharper than the fish or the onions. _hee hee, jk!_

“Would you go on a date with me?” you blurt out.

He goes violently pink all over his face. "I. Uh," he says, blinking really fast. "I mean. That's." He's just staring at you, eyes wide.

Dave kicks him in the shin.

"Ow!" he says, startled into motion, glaring at Dave.

"Don't leave the girl hanging, dickmunch," Dave says.

"Fuck you, I can handle my own conversations, Strider." Karkat looks at you again. "A date. Just... a date."

You nod. At six sweeps you wanted to just skip straight to _matesprits forefur_ but you're more careful than that now. Love isn’t a sure thing.

Karkat takes a deep breath, pauses for a second, then lets it out in a whoosh. "Okay."

"Okay?" you repeat, half sure you heard him wrong. You _wanted_ him to agree, but you didn't really _believe_ it would happen. You were mostly asking because Feferi insisted.

"Okay, when," Karkat says, looking at the ground really intently.

You don’t know. Now? Never?

“Do you have time tomorrow?” you squeak. “I mean, it’s not like we really know what’s going to be happening too far in advance anymore...”

“No, I, yeah, that makes sense. Uh. I think so, but not until after the midday rest. I was going to help Jade with gardening in the morning.”

“No you’re not,” Jade says instantly. “You have the whole day off.” You could kiss her. Karkat looks like his face is going to start smoking any second.

“Okay,” he says quietly. “Yeah, sure. You heard the girl. Schedule’s clear.”

“I’ll come find you around dawn,” you say. That'll give you five or six hours together before midday nap time. Gosh. Five or six hours of time with Karkat and you have no idea how to even _talk_ to him, and....

“Okay,” he repeats. He glances up from his feet, meets your gaze, looks back down at his feet really fast. Everyone’s still looking at you and grinning.

“I’m... gonna... go do a thing,” you manage, and abscond.

*

Feferi and Sollux find you up a tree. You picked a big one a good ways away from the village but of course Feferi knows you. You can hear the bark crackling and leaves rustling as she climbs up after you, and the low thrum of psionics.

“That went well,” Feferi says breathlessly, hauling herself awkwardly on to your branch. She’s still so much taller than you, she’s graceless when she has to use your skillset. It makes a very mean little part of you happy to see it. As penance you let her hug you, and burrow your face into her shoulder.

"Kind of," you agree. "But now I have to _go_ on the date."

"That's good, though!" Feferi says. "Eel have the chance to get to know you betta."

You shake your head. You're more nervous now than you were before you asked. "It's _Karkitty_ ," you explain. "I like him so much, and he..."

"Doesn't like anyfin," Sollux finishes from your other side.

"Purrcisely," you moan.

Feferi sighs and pets your head. You lean into her a little harder, grateful for the touch and then guilty for feeling grateful and then angry about feeling guilty. You hate the fact that you can't talk to your moirail anymore. Not that he would have any helpful advice for this situation in the first place! It would be all _he is una%eptable_ but... but it would at least be familiar. You could take some comfort from it. 

“Desist in these foalish cogitations,” Feferi says in a deep, gravely voice. You giggle, even though it hurts. When you peek up at her she’s smiling sadly. It helps a little.

"You can't make me," you say, doing your best to sound like you're sassing back even if your voice wobbles.

“I order you,” she says, and crosses her arms.

“I disoprey!” you announce, and cross yours.

“Then face your punishment,” she intones, and jams her long fingers up your shirt. You shriek as she tickles your ribs, laughing and kicking helplessly. She knows _exactly_ where to get you. The two of you go tumbling off the branch and then you really do scream, but Sollux grabs you by your shirt collar. Before the fabric can rip, a familiar red-blue light blazes around you and Feferi, and Sollux drags you back up, whining with strain and fear.

“God,” he pants. “Shit. Get up here, get. Don’t ever do that again, I don’t have the firepower I used to—”

Wrapped tightly around the branch, you turn your head, and look pointedly at his crotch.

“ _Reely_.”

His eyes narrow. “Okay, you can go back down,” he growls, and pushes halfheartedly at you. You dig your nails into the bark and push back, Feferi laughing and grabbing at the both of you.

“We’re all going down,” she says. “Come on, we can roll around like bassholes on solid growlnd.”

The climb down is made in better spirits than the climb up. You and Sollux slap and fuss as you descend, making a production of it, and Feferi scolds in between fits of giggles. Sollux finally manages to shove you off the very lowest branch and you turn a neat flip in the air, landing on your feet and bouncing back upright with both middle fingers on display.

“I’m not impressed,” he sniffs, landing lightly as a fallen leaf. He dusts himself off fastidiously, and Feferi catches you around the waist before you can grab up a handful of mulch to throw at him. She settles down with her back against the trunk, you in her lap, and Sollux leans up alongside her. He’s all sweaty and static-frizzed from his powers, and doesn’t even blink when you comb his hair back into shape.

"Now," Feferi says. "We were sprategizing for a very impurrtant date."

“Shame we don’t have any dungeon crawls around here,” Sollux muses. “That always, eheh. You know.”

Your ears heat up again, and Feferi snickers. You do know.

“You could go on a hunt,” Feferi suggests. “You’re the best at any of us tracking prey over land, and I could really do with a fucking steak. If you two have a constructive goal to work towards, maybe you won’t spend the whole time flippering out over your feelings!”

Sollux nods. "Yeah, let KK think he's being useful, maybe he'll be in less of a shitty mood? It’s not like letting him stew in his own inadequacies softens him up any."

“And you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you,” Feferi teases.

“I am an observant guy,” Sollux says loftily, “who has no clue what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, KK,” Feferi says in a silly, nasal voice, “have I mentioned you look ethpecially thtupid in the fathe today—”

Sollux hisses sulkily. “The very observant guy may have observed KK’s got a nice butt, so cull me. It’s not like Nepeta doesn’t think so too.”

“It _is_ like Nepeta wouldn’t have admitted it!” you protest. You know you’re blushing right down to your shoulders. You’re so glad it’s dark.

Feferi runs her fingers through your hair, her claws teasing out the little tangles and smoothing them down. "Is it like Nepeta feels more purrpared for her date now?"

You lean into her hands and sigh. You're still nervous, but... it's better. At least a little.

“We’ll go after one of those big tusked oinkbeast-looking things,” you decide. “I know where they like to wallow in the mornings, and it’s aboat time we had some bacon for breakfasts.”

Sollux and Feferi cheer.

*

The night-time sleeping period is the longer one, from midnight-ish until nearly dawn, but you feel like this time you spend almost the whole night tossing and turning. It helps to have an idea of what you're going to do, but you're still so nervous. He said yes. You never expected him to say yes.

You get out and clutch to your chest the heavy claw gloves Equius made you the second week here, when he found the first copper deposit and everyone was clamoring to be the first one armed. Instead of making swords or knives or sickles Equius had bade you bring him hopbeast hide and helped you stitch together the gloves, each blade short and thick to compensate for the untempered metal but wickedly curved and perfectly honed, and you’d slept in his arms that night and thought that maybe you were going to patch things up, really, for real. You’d thought that everything would be alright. And the next morning you’d found him awake before you and kissing Gamzee, and Gamzee had looked at you, and the fucking clown had smirked. When you’d gone to claw his head off properly Terezi had caught your wrist and dragged you away and sat on you till you stopped crying.

When you give up on sleeping any more this morning, you slip quietly out of your shared hive—one of three, so far, and eventually there should be at least twice that many. The humans, ex-humans, whatever, are really big on sharing space, and the rest of you are finding that's not as weird a thought as it would have been before.

It looks like Karkat hasn't been sleeping any better than you did. You find him sitting at the firepit in the first silvery glow before dawn, poking at the fire. For an instant you want to pounce, throw your arms around him and give him a big kiss hello but instead you just scuff your feet, and when he startles and looks up you wave. You remember Roxy on the shelltop to Dirk—you remember her shaking her head in exasperation. You remember Feferi giving Sollux space when he needed to program. It’s not all about the chase, courting boys. Some of it’s about the wait. He waves back uncertainly, looking at the space between you, and you sit down.

“Tea?” he asks.

“We have tea?” you ask, startled. “We have a _kettle_?”

“Yeah, I guess Terezi and Rose figured out the right amount of mud to wrestle in and then set fire to. I, uh, I found some leaves and berries and crap, so I thought you’d like to be the first to try the whole thing out.”

“Gimme gimme gimme,” you demand, and he scoots the squat, heavy-looking hunk of clay out of the fire, then uses a stick to get it to pour dark steaming liquid into two lumpy mugs. You have never been more glad of the humans’ baffling forays into playing with mud and fire. The cup feels utterly different from fine boneware or sturdy chitin, heavy and rough as a chunk of stone from your old hive, but the contents smell like tea.

“Is it any good?” Karkat asks nervously. You realize you’re just watching the steam, your eyes prickling a little. You’re being a big doofus, but... it’s tea, it’s been seasons since you’ve had tea, ages. Lifetimes. 

You take a sip. It’s an intense, almost cloyingly sweet blend, purple berries and that root that the humans say is kind of like ginger. If this was one of your Quests you’d be looking for something bitter to add, some sharper note to balance the sweetness. If this was a rainy day stuck at home with Pounce you’d pitch the whole brew out and try again. If it was your Player, sitting with her back to the door of the intoxicants block and shaking all over...

“This is just what Roxy would have liked,” you murmur, and wipe at your eyes. "Thank you."

Karkat's shoulders ease down away from his ears just a fraction, and you realize that mattered to him: he wanted to get it right. To give you something you'd like. You take another sip and find yourself smiling.

"Roxy was the one you were the sprite for, huh?" he says. His teeth worry at his lip for a second. “What was it like being a sprite?”

You shrug, uncomfortable again. “It was good. It was... nice to belong to someone.”

Now Karkat looks uncomfortable, and maybe kind of sad too. "Yeah," he says quietly. "I think... I sort of understand."

You've heard about the survivors' time on the meteor in little disjointed snatches of explanation, in dry comments from Kanaya and rambling metaphors from Dave. Being dead wasn't much fun but it sounds like being alive was no picnic either. "It's better now, though," you say, and you're not entirely convinced by your own smile but you're trying. "Having everyone around, having places to explore and, and things to work on."

Karkat huffs. "Are you kidding? Being crammed kicking and screaming into the universe’s saddest mother-cluckbeast outfit night in and night out just to keep this feculent gang of gap-fanged, slack-fronded, mad-eyed cull-ditch rejects from imploding under the weight of their raging mental health issues?” He puffs up as he speaks, getting livelier and fussier, like a pricklebeast frightening off enemies. “Let alone getting anyone—or, god fucking forbid, _everyone!_ —on board with the pants-shittingly revolutionary concept of maybe pulling together as a team so we don’t all starve to death while recklessly soliciting every single fucking possible danger this planet can throw at us like the drones are hitting us over the fucking head with a pail specially marked out for morons!" After a minute he catches himself and lets out all of his breath in a rush, looking down at his mug. You're chewing on your lip so you don't laugh, but you think there might be a tiny smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. You hope so. "I guess it does keep me busy."

"Exactly!" you say. "So, speaking of keeping busy, um. I thought maybe this morning we could go fur a hunting trip? Unless you don't want to. We could defurnitely do something else if you want." You bite your lip again before you can keep chattering. He knows he gets a say in things!

"No, that's fine, that sounds good," Karkat says. "It'll keep me from feeling like I'm wasting a morning. I mean—! Shit. Sorry. I don't mean that spending time with you is a waste, it's just..."

You nod in a hurry. "There's always lots to do," you say, which is true. The first month after the victory was the worst, when nobody had enough shelter or enough food and everyone felt weird about their bodies and mad at each other all the time. But even now that you're all getting the hang of your situation, everyone has to work all the time, pretty much, just to make sure there’s enough of everything to go around.

"Yeah," Karkat says gratefully. "Yeah. Two wingbeasts, one stone, that sort of thing." You finish your cups of tea and set them down, and then he says, "Shall we?"

You bounce to your feet, check your clawgloves, then take off down the path into the deeper forest. If you go just a little too fast, so that he has to jog after you to keep up and neither of you can really talk, well, then, you’ll just get to the wallow faster.

*

The land you’ve all wound up in is warm but steep, a lot like the mountain range of your old territory back on Alternia but with no real, proper caves that anyone’s been able to find. A few shallow burrows here and there, one den full of something ursine and cranky, and some tumbled, crumbly rockslides, but that’s it. Alternia was riddled with caves, after so many millennia of trolls busily digging here and there and everywhere for their mothergrubs—even your own cavehive was once the set of some long-ago coven of auxiliatrices. In one of your larders had been carved NT <3 KZ in clumsy, ancient runes, and you’d always touched that cute little heart every time you went to stow a new corpse in the block, and wondered... But these mountains seem solid pretty much all the way through, cut only by rivers and streams and little cup-like lake-valleys, like the one you’ve all picked out at random to be yours.

So your valley’s lake is a little ways away from your village, since the first day hoofbeasts coming to water stomped everyone’s tents flat, and then there’s the waterfall that feeds into it a ways away from that. And if you scale the wet cliffside and try not to feel too guilty about Karkat grumbling from the strain, you can peer up over the ledge and see the warm, shallow basin where the huge, tusked oinkbeasts like to spend their mornings smearing their hides with mud.

You catch Karkat’s shoulder as he catches up to you, panting, before he can poke his head up too far, and warn him quiet. He eases incrementally upwards to sneak a quick look, then ducks back down fast, his nails digging into the stone ledge hard.

“Nooksucking mother of fuck, _that’s_ what we’re hunting?” he hisses. His pupils are like needles, and you’re startled and then ashamed. They’re one of the big hoofbeasts around here, sure, but they only have the tusks at one end, and you’re sure they’re not venomous or anything. You hadn’t thought Karkat would actually be _scared_.

But before you can think of some way to give him an out without insulting him, he takes a deep breath and visibly reins himself in. “Okay,” he says tightly. “Okay. We can do this, right? We’ve taken down way bigger in the game.”

“Yeah, exactly,” you agree with relief. “I was finking, they’re all lazing around at the top of the waterfall, so if we just kind of sneak over and—”

“—Stampede them right the fuck off the edge! Yes! So if you go around one side and I go around the other...?”

You beam at him, and adjust the fit of your gloves with your teeth a final time.

“I used to do this all the time with mom,” you say. “You flank them left, I’ll take right. On my signal we start roaring, okay?”

He nods firmly. You spend one kind of long, hesitant moment just smiling at each other, enjoying the way resolve draws a line between his brows and makes him look so mature, then you come back to yourself with a little warm surge of embarrassment and go over the top.

You take a wide circuit around the wallow, slipping through the tangled brush that grows beyond the mud. The wind is in your favor, but even if it weren't you wonder if that would make a difference. You've never hunted the oinkbeasts before, so would they even recognize you as a possible threat?

You’re nearly in position when you hear a loud _smack_ , and look over—along with every hog in the vicinity—to see that Karkat’s slipped on a patch of mud and fallen flat on his back.

“Fuck,” he wheezes, and tries to roll over. The mud is thick and he just squirms and slips back again while all the oinkbeasts scramble to their feet, tails flicking, tusks swinging in dangerous arcs. You’re unnoticed, for now, pressed low up against a rock, but it’s just a matter of time before... oh, shit. The biggest of them, a boar with tusks as long as your arm, is on his feet and snorting, fixated on Karkat as he squirms. He needs to calm down, he’s just scrambling, uncoordinated and panicky, getting nowhere in the slick mud and drawing all the attention. Your heart’s in your throat, and the boar gives a ringing bellow and charges forward.

You don’t even think before you pounce. The boar’s back is hot and bristly under your hands and knees, and you lock your thighs around the barrel of the neck and jam your claws just behind the ears. It squeals at an ear-splitting pitch and bucks, stamping and prancing in a tight, vicious circle as you rip and tear at its fleshy throat. Your claws aren’t long enough to get past all the hide and fat, you don’t think you’re reaching anything important enough to slow it down, though torrents of crimson blood are pouring into the mud. You think you see Karkat rolling out of reach of the lashing, stamping hooves, fuck, you _hope_. You lean forward enough to rake your blades up and along its tossing head. The high scream the beast makes at that rattles your bones, but you think you’ve blinded it. It goes charging this way and that, crashing into the rocks as you hang on for dear life and try to get your short claws through its vertebrae, and Karkat’s bravely jumping around and smashing at its hindquarters to get it to run itself into boulders.

“Jump!” Karkat screams, suddenly, and you realize that you’ve been so focused on trying to cut its throat that the oinkbeast has charged to the very edge of the cliff without your noticing, and when it squeals and tries to buck, a hoof slips over the wet edge. Everything happens so _fast_ , then, all jumbled and bright: you see the waterfall beneath you, three hooves churning up water as they spill out into open air over that long, fatal drop, and you see Karkat charging forward, his arms outstretched.

You reach for him, weightless and terrified, and he grabs your wrist tight.

Gravity reasserts itself and you slam into wet rocks, Karkat’s hands all over you. You gasp for breath and try to sort out whose limbs are whose and how much of your body isn’t bruised, and you find that you’re laughing, both of you, and Karkat’s punching your shoulders.

“Don’t you do that again,” he’s babbling, “fuck, I’m so sorry, I can’t believe I—I fell over like the incredible barfshitting king of all chucklefucks and then—fuck, I thought you were going to go over, just ride it straight off the edge, you crotchblisteringly insane excuse for a catgirl, did you think you could land on your fucking feet after that, is that what you were up to—”

“—but you caught me,” you say, “I’m fine, I’m fine, you caught me,” and you can’t stop laughing. You want to kiss him so badly it’s like blood on your tongue, but you just rest your head on his shoulder and feel him shake, let him thump his fists against your back.

“Damn right I caught you,” Karkat says finally, calming down. “No one’s dying on my watch anymore. Not again.”

You slide your hands around his chest and he smooths his fists out along your spine and then you’re hugging, and you can feel his heart racing. Yours is too, so hard you think it might break out of your thorax. His face presses against your hair: not really a kiss. But close. It has that kind of tenderness.

He pulls away first, but not until he's held you for a good long moment, and he still keeps kind of bopping at you with loose fists, like he’s checking to make sure you’re still solid. "Okay," he says, "so the plan was kind of a colossal dickmongering failure, but we did get one of them over the falls. We should go and figure out how to get it back home before anything bigger shows up and thinks it wants some of our kill."

 _Our_ kill. You like the sound of that.

*

Your kill is huge. It seems even bigger in death than in life, too massive to float in the knee-deep stream. Karkat grabs a hoof and heaves, and it barely even rocks. The head is longer than your whole torso.

“We’re fucked,” Karkat says. “How are we getting this back to camp?”

“Catpurr could probably haul this,” you say tentatively. Equius could too, but. Well. “Help us out, anywave.”

Karkat grunts, and his shoulders hunch up. “He’s not going to fucking _believe_ us,” he says, kind of plaintively. “You know that asshole, he’s just going to assume this fucker’s a hopbeast and make fun of my size like he always does, never mind that he’s built like a noodle convention making passionate romance to a stick.”

Oh. Your heart melts a little at his defensiveness. “What if we dragged home the head,” you suggest, “and snuck up on him with it?” and at that Karkat lights up like an electric eel, almost vibrating with glee.

“Yes,” he says fervently, and spreads his arms out along the beast’s bloody, massive cranium. “Oh, fuck yes.”

Cutting the head off is _hard_ , with the limited tools you have. You have to put a lot of work into it to get through the tough hide and thick layer of fat beneath, and then you hit the major arteries in the neck and have to just stop working for a few minutes and wait for the bleeding to slow. Karkat looks like he's pretty grossed out and trying to pretend he isn't. The stream runs red for a little while, and you think of the Land of Pulse and Haze, all those delicious seas of strange red blood. You all have that same red blood now, bright as Karkat’s and the humans’, and it’s nice.

Then you realize that you should probably gut the carcass, too, in case it has bits that could rupture and spoil the meat. That's a mistake you made once or twice when you were starting to do your own hunting, and it was sweeps ago when you were just a kitten but you still remember how frustrating it was. So you strip down to your ragged trousers to open up the belly and cut free all of the digestive tract, as carefully as you can so you don't puncture anything. The oinkbeast is too big for you to actually carry all of that mess by yourself without cutting it up, so Karkat helps you, chanting "gross gross gross" under his breath while you haul slippery ropes of intestine away from the water and the usable carcass.

"It reely is," you agree when you dump the whole mess safely at a distance. "But think how delicious supurr tonight will be!"

Karkat rallies, his hands still bloody and his face lighting up with fierce pride. You feel like swooning a little bit. "Right," he says. "We're going to eat like royalty tonight, and everyone will know who they have to thank for it."

On cue, your digestive sac turns over and gives a little growl, and Karkat startles. You laugh and rub at your own guts, feeling the sharp pangs of hunger now that the urgent rush of hunt and cleaning is through.

“Speaking of,” you say, “you wanna split the heart for lunch?”

“I. What?” Karkat asks, still staring at the blood you’ve smeared across your belly like he’s just registered that you’re shirtless. Since winding up in this new world, with these new evened-out bodies, not even the girls have rumble spheres anymore—though in your case a busy life of hard hunts and lean meat hadn’t given you any breasts to lose, for all that Kanaya and Rose have been a little whiny about their own personal losses. You think your hips weren’t so bad, though, and have maybe gotten a little better. But still, now, the startled and admiring way Karkat’s looking at your body makes you warm to the tips of your ears, makes you feel _hot_ , and you dare a coy, luxuriating stretch, to crack out your spine. He flicks his gaze up to your face, his own gone vividly pink, and says, “Right, yeah.”

The heart isn’t so hard to wrestle out of the chest cavity, but it’s nearly the size of your head and you wind up pretty caked with gore by the time you get it out. You dump it in Karkat’s arms along with your claw gloves and go for a quick splashy grooming in the waterfall. He's still holding it awkwardly when you get back, looking at the purple meat like he has no idea what to do with it. You giggle, and he bristles reflexively.

"Here," you say, taking the heart and moving to crouch beside a wide flat rock at the stream's edge. It would be nice to have some better knives for this, but you make do with the first blade of your glove, carving a lopsided chunk off the heart and offering it to him.

Karkat blinks at you a couple of times. "Raw?" he says.

You freeze up. You're too weird, too wild, of course he wouldn't want to eat it without cooking it first, that's only for thoughtless, uncivilized ferals like you. "Sorry," you say, pulling back. "Sorry, sorry, I wasn't thinking at all, we should get a fire going."

He catches your hand before you can pull away completely. "No, you don't—it's fine," he says. "I was just surprised, that's all. I, uh. I don't think I've really eaten anything raw since my lusus was hunting for me." He takes the strip of tuskbeast flesh out of your hand. "But I guess this is kind of traditional, huh. The first bite of the fallen prey, or whatever."

"Celepurrating our victory," you agree, stupidly grateful that he would tell you it's okay, cutting a second slice for yourself. You pop it into your mouth and Karkat does the same—was he waiting for you so that you could share the chance to be first?—and it tastes _wonderful_. The meat is flavorful and rich, with an almost smoky tang to it, and you can tell in the first bite how badly your body has been craving something like this.

From the look on his face you'd bet Karkat is feeling that way too. You almost can't stand to look, except you can't stand to look away. His eyes flutter closed and his face melts into this expression of quiet, intense pleasure. You feel so aware of your body. He licks his lips with his wet pink tongue and you die a little.

"More?" he asks, opening his eyes.

You shake yourself, bracing the heart so you can carve another slice. "Lots more."

You are a champion.

*

By the time you get the head back to the settlement it’s high noon, and Karkat’s flagging badly and hiding it worse. You’re starting to have a pretty low opinion of what kind of games he and the other survivors all played back on the meteor, if he’s in this kind of shape at—whatever age he is. Whatever age you all are now, and that’s another strange thing, that you’ve been dead for a sweep and a half but don’t feel quite like you used to. Maybe you were all still growing up, even dead. Maybe it’s a sprite thing, maybe you got... updated. You’ll ask Sollux.

After you wake him up.

Since it’s noon, everyone’s mostly drowsing in the bright, buttery sunlight that splashes down through the trees. Sollux isn’t too hard to find, sacked out in the middle of a patch of dirt and scratchy equations, pointed stick still in one loose hand, and in a stroke of good luck he is for once not curled up around either Aradia or Feferi. You and Karkat sneak closer, until Karkat’s holding the enormous, gory snout scant inches from Sollux’s peaceful face, and then you break off and snuggle carefully up under Sollux’s arm.

“Sollux,” you say. “Hey, Sollicks.”

“Fuck _offffff_ , NP,” he says.

“Sollux Sollux Sollux Sollux,” you say.

“What,” he finally moans.

“Karkat has somefin he wants to show you,” you say sweetly.

“Karkat?” he says, waking up fast. When he tries to sit up the hovering snout gently squishes against his forehead.

The scream he lets out rattles your horns, and the optic blast probably blinds half the settlement. It blows Karkat off his feet and sends the head tumbling across the clearing, trailing smoke.

You howl with laughter, and when your vision clears a little you can see Sollux chasing Karkat around, kicking at him as Karkat laughs and staggers, obviously still stunned from the blast.

“Hey!” you say sharply. “Don’t make me come ofur there, Catpurr!”

He draws up short with his claws fisted in Karkat’s shirt, then lets go abruptly, dusts himself down, flips you off with both hands. Then he turns on his heels and storms off into the woods.

Karkat giggles dazedly and falls over.

Then you realize the flaw in this cunning plan, which is that Sollux has gone storming off without giving you a chance to explain what you needed from him. You have to hunt down Feferi, wake her up, and explain apologetically why you need Sollux's help and—sort of—why you can't ask him yourselves. You skip some details there, maybe most of the details, maybe all of the details, but she does agree to get up—even though it's so very nice to nap in the middle of the day—and go find him and rope him into hauling the meat back. When she sees the size of the blown-over head, she gives a little skip of delight, and practically bounces off into the woods after him.

You have, you think, discharged your responsibilities quite admirably.

You’re exhausted and giddy from your adventure, and the thick grass north of the well is the most comfortable thing you’ve ever flopped in. Karkat thuds heavily down beside you and moans, long and luxuriating, and you try to manage the heat that sound sends down your spine.

“Hey,” he says, and you loll your head over to look at him. He’s strange in the sunlight, his milky skin and hair glittering with water, and he’s just looking at you, calculating and intense.

“Yeah?” you ask, and he rolls over close, till you can feel his breath on your face. Your heart is in your throat and you can’t move, you’re frozen, and he’s just looking at you.

He kisses your cheek, very carefully.

“That was actually a pretty good date,” he says. “Maybe it wouldn’t be completely terrible if we had another one.”

“Yeah,” you breathe. “Yeah, yes, shore, as minnow—as many as you like.”

He looks away, blinking fast. “Okay,” he says, and swallows hard. He lies down in the grass beside you, chest down, face turned away.

You reach out and you slide your hand against his, cautious, scared as hell, and you hook your littlest finger around his. You want to hold him, kiss him, sink into him till he screams, but you think you’d split into pieces if you tried for anything more than just this. Where his lips brushed your cheek burns.

His finger hooks around yours, so you’re linked. You bite your lip, turn your face away from him, try not to breathe too loud or weird or fast. You could cry from this happiness, from how fragile it feels, and how strong.

Under the excitement, though, you really are tired, and it’s high noon. You drift off.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, and then we needed a "friends with benefits" tag! Sorry about the absolutely absurd time between chapters, guys.

Dinner that night is almost a party. Big slabs of your kill get roasted on impromptu spits over the fire, and they come out charred in some spots and still wet red in others, but the crucial thing is there's _plenty_. For the first time since the game ended, all sixteen of you have had enough to eat and there's still a lot left over. You bask in the satisfaction of your victory and the comforting weight of a full belly, and you think Karkat is doing more or less the same thing. This is your team, these are your friends, and you've provided for them.

Feferi catches you after the feast, her arm firm around your wrist, and draws you a little ways away from the fire. 

“Look,” she says, “it’s not that I’m not _really_ happy for you that everything went so well, but we have to talk about Sollux.”

You blink. “Water ‘bout him,” you say cautiously, which is evidently not the right thing to say because she puffs her cheeks up. 

“You need to keep your whiskers out of his thing with Karkat,” she says, very seriously. “I know you, but I know him, and I know he’d never admit this but you really hurt his ‘eelings earlier when you went and ganged up on him like that.”

Oh. Your guts turn over horribly inside you as you think about how upset Sollux had been, and how funny you’d thought it was at the time. “I didn’t...” you flail. “I meown, it wasn’t like—I’m shore-y! I didn’t mean to! I just—”

“You wanted to impress Karkat,” Feferi says, and you nod, feeling like the worst, grossest, scummiest bottom-feeder ever. What kind of person betrays their friends’ trust just to impress a flushcrush? Assholes, is who. You’re actually surprised when Feferi steps forward and hugs you, cups the back of your head, and you cling to her desperately. 

“‘M sorry,” you say. “I’ll tell him—”

“Oh, cod, don’t, he’d be _mortifurred_. Just let him fight his own battles, alright?” 

“Aright,” you agree. “Paws off.”

She kisses your forehead. “There’s my trusty lionfish,” she says fondly.

“They’d make such a cute couple though, don’t purrtend you don’t think so too,” you mutter, and when she laughs you know you’re off the hook. 

“They’ll get there in their own time,” she says. “And so will you.”

*

You find yourself giving more orders in the next three days than you have in the whole rest of your life. Even after that first feast, there's a _mountain_ of oinkbeast left, and you need to do things with it before it goes bad. You know more about hunting and curing wild game than anyone else, so you have to explain what each process needs. 

Rose wants to use some of the fat for making soap, which you don't have any idea how to do, so you happily give her control of that project, and then Jade and Kanaya both want to take over the tanning and you have to explain all the steps and why and then Tavros eats the _gallbladder_ on a dare from John and you have to get everything sorted out, and then Eridan and Vriska get interested in what parts could be used for slings and bowstrings and Dave and Aradia won’t leave the bone pile alone and keep wasting everyone’s time trying to re-articulate the skeleton and there are shifts that need to be set up to take care of smoking all the meat, you need to walk everyone through how to set up drying racks... Your voice gets so hoarse from all the talking, you start to sound as raspy as Karkat. You don't think you've ever talked out loud this much before in your life! But people are listening to you, and that's... kind of nice, when it's not scary.

Equius finds you at one point and tells you stiffly that he's proud of you, that you're doing important things for the group and it's admirable how hard you're working. You smile a little and try to think of how to thank him, because you know how rare it is for him to approve of anything ever. But then Gamzee comes slinking up behind him and _looks_ at you, resting his bony chin on Equius's shoulder, and you feel sick. You stammer an excuse about checking on the tanning project and abscond.

Gamzee mostly lurks around the woods out of sight because no one fucking likes him but you always catch a glimpse of him when you’re least expecting it, him lounging around up a tree or against a rock, and he’s always with Equius, and Equius always looks sad and worn and guilty but he never follows you when you hurry away. 

Eridan and Jade manage to commission some longbows during one of the rare moments your maybe-probably-you-don't-want-to-think-about-it-ex-moirail isn’t dancing attendance on a psycho clown, and the two of them become total menaces and manage to shoot each other—with blunt headless arrows, at least—about thirty million times apiece before a stray arrow takes a chip out of Vriska’s horn and she chases them off into the woods. Then Kanaya turns out to be absolutely hopeless at curing hides and takes to sulky lakeside basket weaving and scaring the fish. Aradia and Dave have a fight over the skull that escalates into a hut getting set on fire. Tavros knocks an entire rack of meat into the dirt and steps on more pieces than he manages to pick up. John figures out hateflirting and makes a supreme nuisance of himself. Karkat shouts so hard he actually bursts a blood vessel in his eye. Every day feels like it scrapes you thinner. 

You're working on cracking the big bones for points—bone is lousy for making knives, but good for spearpoints and arrowheads—and Terezi comes to sit down next to you. You tense up: you’ve said some pretty mean things to Terezi, since she’s made it her mission to keep your claws out of Gamzee’s hide, and moreover there’s the muddle with Karkat, and you haven’t yet figured out how to properly apologize for any of it. 

But—"Congratulations," Terezi says sincerely. "The mighty pouncellor has certainly come into her own."

You laugh, and drop the bone you're working on so you can hug her. "The adorabloodthirsty pouncellor is grateful to have her effurts recognized by the court!" you say, wild with relief. "She holds the most fursome legislacerator in high regard." Terezi is a little stiff in your arms at first, and you start to worry, because you're friends again, right? You've always been friends, before. But maybe you should still have held back, maybe you're still too touchy and clingy—it’s not such a big deal to hug people now, is it? Not with the way the former humans always are—

And Terezi hugs you back, hard enough to crack the stiff joints in your spine. She sniffs once, kind of wetly, then pulls away fast and goes off into the woods. 

You sigh, and pick up the bone again. You wish you knew what to do about her, like, _really_ do about her. So many of your friends are so different now, so much more sad and splintery. Maybe you are too. Maybe that’s what growing up is. 

Feferi and Sollux drop down on either side of you, startling you out of your gloomy thoughts. "Break time!" Feferi announces. 

"But—" you start.

"In the interest of nobody going raving shithive maggots," Sollux says, in his parroting-somebody tone of voice, "everyone takes a break sometimes to relax, no matter what they're working on. Leader's orders."

You frown at him. "That doesn't quite sound like something Karkitty would say."

"No, it was totally Rose's idea," Feferi confirms. "But she's right, and you've been working your adorabubble butt off, so we have no choice but to enforce the rules!"

"Well," you say, looking down at the small pile of bone points. I guess—"

"Swimming it is!" Feferi says, grabbing your wrist and hauling you up. You drop your bone, hoping someone else will think to put everything away before scavengers come looking for it, and Sollux gets you by the other hand, helping Feferi drag you off to the lake.

Your clothes go flying, probably with less care than they deserve when there isn't a wardrobifier or an alchemiter handy to just dial up more of them. But they'd just drag you down in the lake, and who wants to be the last one into the water? Sollux splashes and flails awkwardly, Feferi eels along with barely a ripple, and you're somewhere in between. You play a goofy, who-needs-rules game of tag until Sollux claims to be winded and hauls himself out onto the bank.

With only two players, there's not much difference between tag and pouncebeast-and-squeakcreature, and pretty soon you and Feferi are rolling each other over in the shallows, glubbing and yelping as you wrestle for the upper hand. After all the reasonable explaining and focused concentrating you've had to do this week, being able to cut loose and burn off some energy feels _great_. Your pulse picks up and your skin tingles, muscles thrumming warm with movement. Feferi is a great wrestling partner, strong enough to give you a challenge, not so afraid of her strength that she won't really push you. She rolls you onto your back at the water's edge and her thigh slips between yours and suddenly you're really conscious of another part of you that's gotten lively and energetic in the tussle.

“Um,” you say, going very still. 

“Oh,” Feferi says, astonishingly sympathetically. She shifts above you and you grit your fangs around a whine. “Oh, sweetie. You haven’t had time to yourshellf in a week, have you?”

You face feels like it’s going to melt off, you’re blushing so hard. Feferi is warm and firm and soft above you and your pulse is racing and everything between your legs is just totally not helping the situation. Sollux is _right there,_ though when you dart a glance his way he seems to be extremely interested in poking at the mud. You feel _so_ stupid.

You wriggle out from under Feferi and up the bank, curling up around your boner in utter embarrassment. “It’s not, I don’t think of you like that,” you stammer. “We were just—and mew, you—”

“We’re just playing around, and it’s been too long since you had the oppor-tuna-ty to relax,” Feferi says firmly. “It’s okay, I get it.”

You nod gratefully. Sollux is watching a dragonfly with every sign of fascination. You want to die. 

“I could give you a hand, if you wanted,” Feferi says, and you and Sollux both stare at her. “What?” she demands. “We talked about this!”

“I didn’t think you were sea-rious!” Sollux blurts. “You _want_ to?”

“She’s my—you’re my very dearest and most important friend ever,” Feferi says. “I don’t like how abalonely you are sometimes.”

“But, Sollux,” you say, and wave frantically towards him. “And you! And him!”

“He doesn’t mind,” she says, and when you look at Sollux again he’s staring very intently at his hands. He darts a little glance at you and looks at his hands again. 

“We did talk about it,” he says guiltily. “So. If you want. It’s fine. You’re like, I mean, you’re sisters. It doesn’t count, to me, and I mean, you’re here, I’m here, it’s not as if you’re sneaking around behind my back, you wouldn’t do that. So. We’re cool. If you’re cool.”

You don’t feel cool at all. You feel hot and frantic and unreal and your bulge aches and Feferi’s naked and you’re naked. 

“Okay,” you squeak. “Okay, cool.”

Feferi squeals and kisses you, but on the cheek. You kiss her back and then tuck your head in the crook of her shoulder, at a complete loss, but she’s got you. She pushes you down to your back and strokes your tense stomach, your thighs. You know she remembers being you, she remembers every part of your body, but that was—from the inside, and anyway you’re all different now. It’s hard to relax, even as she traces a light tingling path up from your knee that sets you squirming. 

“How much have you done with yourself?” she asks curiously. “Do you have anything you really like?”

“Um, I—I don’t know, I just, a—ah!—a bit, I, oh.” She’s taken hold of your bulge. You prop yourself up on your elbows to look at that, the rich dark shades of umber and ruddy blood-flushed sienna against each other. Your bulge used to be short and green, sharply tapered, and now it comes out as a stiff long thing with a fleshy cap at the end and you don’t want to admit that even after a couple _months_ you don’t quite know what to do with it. You play with your nook to get off— _that’s_ okay, even though the texture’s all different, but—your bulge, mostly you just kind of squeeze it a little and try not to think too hard.

Feferi doesn’t squeeze it. She strokes it with just her fingertips, up and down, till you’re all splayed out against the bank and panting, more wound up than you’ve ever been in your _life_ , and then she bends down and takes the whole thing into her mouth. 

You yowl and buck and grab for Feferi’s horns, and somewhere very distantly you can hear Sollux breathe “Holy shit,” but you don’t care. You can feel her tongue, going back and forth against the length, and you can feel the roof of her mouth against the blunt top part of your bulge and you didn’t know it was so sensitive there, you didn’t know it could feel so good like that. She hollows her cheeks out, sucking and licking and everything gets so intense, so wet and warm and you can feel pleasure radiating all through you from where you’re joined. When she strokes fingertips along the slit of your nook it’s all you can handle and you come with a helpless wail, shaking and clinging, and she just keeps on you, pushing you harder.

It seems like ages before she pulls off of you and goes “Bleah,” laughingly, the cloudy colorless genetic material that the new bulges make dripping all down her chin. You’d apologize but you’re still breathless and trembling all over, panting and dazed and surprised at yourself.

“You okay?” she says, resting her cheek against your hip and you nod. “Need a minute?” You nod again. She wipes her chin, and pats at your retreating bulge. 

“No, I’m okay,” you get out. 

She kisses your cheek, and leans back back on her heels. You follow her gaze to see Sollux sprawled back among the reeds, hands busy between his legs and his face gone dopey with pleasure.

“Enjoying yourself?” you ask.

“No,” he retorts, and actually rolls his eyes at you without his hand on his bulge slowing down a bit. “Fuck, of course not, what gave you that idea? Absolutely miserable over here and I intend to stay that way.”

“Awfully chatty for a buoy with his fingers shoved up to his back fangs,” you observe. 

“I should probably fix that,” Feferi agrees.

You send her off to him with an encouraging swat, then roll over to stomach and elbows in the silky lakeside mud and watch her go. She’s on him with the same grace and power she spears fish, laying him out with one economical yank to his ankle, and his head falls back to the bank as he arches up against her. 

“FF—oh, yes, hello there, please—” he gets out, his arms wrapping around her corded shoulders, and then they join together. It’s silly looking and a bit gross, the rapid way she thrusts in and out, the strangled gasping animal sounds he makes and the way bits of both of them sort of flop and jiggle all over. Feferi’s butt is all twitchy, and when you giggle Sollux gets halfway through trying to flip you off before he makes a particularly goofy moan and forgets what he was doing. It seems like even for a couple as beautiful as Feferi and as cute as Sollux, sex is not as pretty as it is in stories. You’re weirdly relieved. 

After Feferi and Sollux have done their thing—it takes a while and involves a lot of yelling, some of it yelling at you— they wobble down to sit beside you right at the water’s edge and splash each other. 

Sollux finally leans back on his hands in laughing surrender, and you think of the bony, unhappy troll Feferi first met back in the game, angry at the universe, angry at himself, burning up from inside on a poisonous mix of spite and shame. Now he’s all soft around the stomach and sweet around the eyes, and he smiles so readily. This new world’s been good for him—and Feferi, too, she’s so free here, with no empire to rule or empress to rebel against, no game to win, no moirail to worry for. This world has been good for a lot of you.

Feferi stretches out between the both of you, head in her boyfriend’s lap, jiggly butt in yours, and Sollux’s long fingers brush yours in the mud. You don’t really know what to say, how to explain any of these feels, this thick fearful happiness. This idea that maybe, finally, you guys can all have what you always were working towards. But you put your hands on hers, on her boyfriend's, and you think maybe they know. 

*

The next morning Karkat finds you sorting through the bone pile again, and he coughs awkwardly like he doesn’t have your attention just by existing in the same general area of the planet. You look at him, and he’s holding a flower, a delicate pink affair shot through with red threads.

“So, uh,” he says, and fusses with the leaves of it. “When were you thinking we’d have another date?”

You feel your ears heat up. You forgot. You’ve been so stupidly busy and tired you forgot he was waiting on you. God, you’re never going to get this right. “Whale...” you say, stalling for time. 

“Because I found a wild beehive, I think, and I was thinking, we could go bring back some honey—or get Sollux to domesticate them, or something. I was just, uh, thinking. If you wanted to.”

“I want to,” you say, and your voice comes out all small. 

“Okay, cool,” he says, “great.” He thrusts the flower out at you. “Here. It’s pretty.”

“Just like you,” you agree, taking it, and he makes a strangled little squeak and goes the same delicate pink as the flower and you feel like an idiot. That compliment was too much, too soon, and now he’s going to be all skittish and think you’re a pushy tone-deaf weirdo. 

“Right, okay,” he says. “I’ll see you. Tonight. The bees sleep at night.”

He scurries off. 

You groan, and flop back into the bone pile. After a bit of thought, you eat the flower. It tastes terrible and serves you right, you’re so _stupid_ sometimes. 

At least you’ve got another date.

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone who's having trouble picturing the hybrids, [here are some headshots of the main characters](http://roachpatrol.tumblr.com/post/47769241318/some-self-indulgent-headshots-from-the-fuzzgrubs). :33


End file.
